Americans wanted transparency about Donald Trump’s medical condition following his COVID-19 diagnosis. But we may get more than we bargained for. Fox News announced that the president would be appearing on Tucker Carlson’s program Friday night for his first on-camera interview since he announced his illness. That’s not all, though. According to the network, Trump will also receive a “medical evaluation” during the primetime program from Dr. Marc Siegel, a Fox News contributor.
That sounds rather unpleasant, of course. But the whole thing is sure to be a stunt meant to convince a wary nation that the 74-year-old president has totally conquered the coronavirus and is ready to head back out on the campaign trail. Trump, his doctors, and his aides have been cagey about his health, providing scant details and misleading information about his condition and treatment. They have been particularly evasive in response to questions about his testing. Speaking to Sean Hannity by phone on Thursday evening, Trump sidestepped the host’s queries as to whether he’s tested negative for COVID or if he’s been tested at all since he was hospitalized with the disease that has killed more than 210,000 Americans. “They found very little infection or virus, if any,” Trump told Hannity, claiming he’d get a test Friday. “I don’t know if they found any. I didn’t go into it greatly with the doctors.” That’s totally normal: Who would “go into it greatly” with doctors after getting infected with a deadly virus? Absurd as it is, that’s more or less the company line. White House spokesman Brian Morgenstern was asked multiple times when the president last tested negative for the virus during a Friday appearance on MSNBC, and for an excruciating five minutes, he twisted himself into a pretzel trying to avoid answering. “Just because he’s president,” he said, “doesn’t mean he shares every single detail of his entire life.”
Why all the secrecy? Perhaps it’s because transparency about Trump’s testing could confirm a more damning timeline of his illness, in which he interacted with others despite knowing he was infected, or because it could reveal that he’s still sick and contagious—even as he pushes to resume his dangerous, in-person campaign events. “I think I’m going to try doing a rally on Saturday night if we can, if we have enough time to put it together,” he said on Hannity Thursday. “Probably in Florida on Saturday night, might come back and do one in Pennsylvania on the following night.”
“I feel so good,” the president added, coughing and sucking air multiple times during the course of the interview.
Surely, his primetime physical Friday is meant to persuade Americans that he’s as healthy as he says he is. But a doctor on his favorite propaganda network testifying to his remarkable, not-at-all-drug-induced vigor and rubber stamping his return to packed rallies hardly constitutes the transparency Americans actually need. He and his administration say he’s fine. But all they’ve offered in support of those claims are staged photographs, inane videos, and assurances that mean little coming from an administration badly lacking in credibility. Anyone brave enough to tune in to Trump’s on-camera medical exam aren’t likely to learn much more about his status.
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